Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 March 20

= March 20 =

Android on Playbook 2.0
Dear Wikipedians:

Just got my Playbook 2.0 today. Heard it supports Android. So how does Android work on Playbook 2.0? I did not see any Android Market or Google Play icons, and a search for those two on RIM's own AppWorld didn't turn up exact hits either.

Thanks very much for all your help,

70.31.158.164 (talk) 01:56, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Even if Android supports the Playbook hardware, the device probably only comes with the BlackBerry OS on it, so you'd have to do a full OS install to use Android. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:57, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * From what I can tell, Playbook 2.0 can run Android apps. They can be installed from "Appworld" (RIM's appstore I assume), according to some of the articles I found, such as this one .  RudolfRed (talk) 04:43, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * It's my understanding that the App's developers have to make the app available in the Blackberry's app store.
 * The goal was to entice developers to publish apps in the Blackberry app store by allowing them to use the apps they'd already prepared for a more popular platform.
 * APL (talk) 12:05, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * It sounds like you may be able to install apps manually . From what I read, you do need to convert the APKs to BARs or obtains BARs in some other way. If you're converting, it may be trouble free but if the app uses the Android NDKs (i.e. uses native code) you're probably SOL. (Blackberry has its own NDK but doesn't support Android apps using the NDK for whatever reason. The Playbook does use ARM and some suggest it did work at one time .) But APL is right, RIM's intention was for developers to sell their apps on the Blackberry store, but it perhaps hasn't been that successful despite offers of free Playbooks . Nil Einne (talk) 16:20, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Which Wikipedia uses disclaimers the most?
Here in English Wikipedia, disclaimers are strictly prohibited on articles since they are considered redundant to our disclaimers at the bottom of the page. However, as of the end of 2011, only two other Wikipedias (Wikipediae?) also have this policy: the Russian Wikipedia and the Chinese Wikipedia. Recently, the Arabic and Japanese Wikipedias created their own versions of NODISCLAIM, but I'm not sure if they have implemented it yet. I'm not sure about the Arabic Wikipedia, but the Japanese Wikipedia still makes extensive use of spoiler warnings. Anyway, at least the last time I checked, the Japanese Wikipedia had plenty of disclaimers on fiction articles (but maybe they were maintenance templates; I don't know, I can't understand Japanese), but they seem to have been removed, or weren't that common in the first place (In one article, there were about three disclaimers, including the spoiler warning). So among the Wikipedias that use disclaimers, which of them has the most number of disclaimer templates? Narutolovehinata5 tccsdnew 12:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Actually the guideline you linked to says that a very small number of what could be considered disclaimers are allowed (and suggests one of the reasons there's no hard policy forbidding all disclaimers is to avoid confusion and excessive disagreement due to these exceptions). If you want a 'disclaimer' count, you're going to have to define what sort of disclaimers you're interested in. Nil Einne (talk) 16:14, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Engine game s2 or s3
What is the name of the engine they use to create Sonic 2 and where could I get it?---74.178.186.35 (talk) 16:39, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * It's proprietary engine, meaning it's both not publicly available and never had a publicized name. Though not technically legal, many people make romhacks from files using various tools, which may be the jist of what you intend to do.  162.111.235.14 (talk) 20:05, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

Raspberry pi
Hello, I'd like to know what makes the raspberry pi computer more powerful than similar sized devices. What is innovative about it ? 41.141.142.89 (talk) 18:06, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * It is not really that much more powerful than the innards of existing consumer routers or media players. The innovative thing is that they took something like that and designed it in such a way that it is a practical general purpose computer. It runs pretty much standard desktop operating systems, boots from an SD-card and has all the essential interfaces. At the some time they managed to keep the price below that of Pico-ITX or similar boards that fill a comparable niche. KarlLohmann (talk) 19:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Rather than use the word 'powerful' it might be better to say that its advantage is that is it very plastic, flexible and transparent in it operation. A user has almost all, if not complete control, over everything it can do. There are no black boxes that remain as mystery to anyone taking the effort to discover how it works. If one wants to use the word powerful, then it promises to be a powerful teaching tool and price-wise it comparatively powerful for its cost.--Aspro (talk) 21:20, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * As the Raspberry Pi article notes, Broadcom has not released documentation for the GPU and its associated media accelerator engine. Raspberry Pi ships with binary blobs for the video driver's modesetting, for its OGL driver, and for its video codec acceleration. To my mind these are very large black boxes. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:45, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * It's not more powerful that similarly sized devices; there have been very small footprint industrial PCs for years, with really scary prices. What's remarkable about Raspberry Pi is that it's spectacularly cheap. There are other SoC-based devices like it in the offing, but Raspberry Pi's real success is that they delivered, and in industrial quantities - and seem to have set up manufacturing deals which will (eventually) meet the demand for the thing. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:09, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Uhmm... A good point. Leaving that aside, I wonder what benefit these would have in being open. The  raison d'etre of Raspberry Pi  is to enable people to learn 'how' computers work at a fundamental level. Not to immediately launch them straight into the stratosphere. Is the GPU chip even programable?--Aspro (talk) 23:37, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Sure, there's all kinds of fun one could have if one had access to a proper description of the hardware registers. Firstly one could construct media codecs other than the few that ship in the black box - both for additional decode formats, and to allow more flexible encoding (imagine a Raspberry Pi on a student-built high-altitude balloon, encoding a webcam picture and sending that home via UMTS).  Secondly there's using (misusing, perhaps) for something equivalent to CUDA. Of course most Rπs are going to do little fancier than run a web browser, but all it takes is one person to write a computer vision library for it and, with a Gertboard and some motors, hundreds of schools can whip up a little robot that can drive around and (mostly) not bump into things. Compared with the horrific "lets set this text to bold" IT curriculum that still pertains in UK schools, the more of that kind of magic the better. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:50, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Reading between the lines, it's pretty clear that the Raspberry Pi team themselves recognise that they'd be better off if they could release all the docs and software for the thing (mostly for all the stuff that they, you, and I can't imagine someone will invent with the thing). They've already done sterling work coaxing Broadcom to release very good docs for the rest of the device, and I believe they're getting the mega-bulk price from Broadcom although their volumes don't match HTC's or the like (heck, if they could fulfil the demand, I'm not sure they're such a small player at all).  I guess Broadcom are reticent to release all that stuff (it's not like nVidia or ATI do for their equivalents) lest some Chinese manufacturer clone that and undercut them.  There are some boards that aim to be entirely open, and cheaper than Raspberry Pi (darned if I can Google them up on demand though...). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Not to be redundant, but technologically speaking, is there a breakthrough that made it possible to manufacture such a computer with cheap components? I'm still confused about that. 41.143.2.219 (talk) 23:24, 20 March 2012 (UTC)


 * No, that's a very good question. Largely it's a single-die system on chip - stuff that decades ago was dozens of chips, that's now down to three or four on a desktop PC, is one on a SoC device (like a Raspberry Pi or an iPod).  You take an embedded SoC controller like Broadcom's (or one from their competitors, for the same market) and add RAM and flash, and you have a basic working computer.  Add a touchscreen, a battery and a GPRS modem and you have a smartphone.  All of this comes from the economy of scale - Broadcom et al can afford to invest a huge sum putting the logic for essentially a whole computer on a single silicon chip because they anticipate selling tens or hundreds of millions into the smartphone market as a result. Stuff like Raspberry Pi is a just a by product.  That said, I still don't understand how Raspberry Pi is so cheap (the Raspberry Pi Foundation must be getting the Broadcom SoC for something like £15) - prices I've seen quoted for the bill of materials for modern smartphones are something like £200+, for which I'd anticipated a large proportion would be the central SoC. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:36, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The assembled component price does not have to included payment for the hundreds/thousands of software/hardware/firmware patents that other device manufactures  have to pay. []. It is just a basic machine. Look at Tom Tom, they even ended up paying royalties for a public domain file system. --Aspro (talk) 23:58, 20 March 2012 (UTC)
 * That's an astute point. One can't underestimate the effectiveness of the Raspberry Pi's charitable status ("oh please don't sue us mister, we're but an iddle bittle chawity").  I wonder if the folks thinking they're going to build a commercial business model off Raspberry Pis turned to specific functions (like media centres) are in for some patent-lawyer fun. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:03, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * If Raspberry Pi dose not contain any patentable technology, it is not liable to pay any royalties. Thus, it does not have to plead, using its chartable status as mitigation... and remember, any lawyer (solicitor) will tell you not to bother suing a man of straw. --Aspro (talk) 00:48, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I'm wondering if Finlay McWalter might not be a secret sales representative for Raspberry Pi ;-) as I'm now itching to get my sweaty little mitts on one – or two -  or three even.--Aspro (talk) 00:15, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * If that were so, I'd have more to show for it than a bunch of empty promises from Farnell. I have to wonder if, when people actually get one, they aren't going to be a bit disappointed that it's slow and small, there's no fun stuff for it, and (I think) there's no Flash support. How depressingly educational it may turn out to be. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:22, 21 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Kids love to discover how stuff works.  Pre- seventeen's can learn to fly gliders and single engine aircraft with competence. Can you imagine little Veruca Salt saying  “No it don't what to fly one of those,  I want to fly an Airbusbus 380 or I'm-going-to-scream-and scream-and-scream.” Kids  accept what opportunities first  come their way –  (only  after that, do they scream and scream that they want more but that's another matter). By which time Daddy can afford to buy them Raspberry Pi MK II – which might include the game of Pong. That will keep them amused for a few hours.--Aspro (talk) 01:31, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, Farnell. There was a time when their catalogue never left my side – even when I went fishing – sad I know. My recollection however was that they always kept their promises, they always delivered (eventually) except when they where out of stock ( which was frequent ).  That reminds my I'm still waiting for them to deliver  some BC 107's.  --Aspro (talk) 00:48, 21 March 2012 (UTC)


 * You have been able to get cheap tablets from China shipped for around US$80-100 for a while now. And these include a usually 7" LCD touchscreen (yes a cheap and not particularly good one), a small amount of flash memory and a lithium ion (probably polymer) battery. But I'm pretty sure these have no subsidies and they're also retail units from commercial sellers (who want to make their normal profit even if being random Chinese sellers the amount is probably not so high) without any charity being involved (I believe the profit RS and Farnell is making from these is lower then they would normally expect since they don't want to come off as the 'badguy'). The GPU on the Raspberry PI device might be better, in particularly I'm not sure that they can normally handle 1080P30 although I don't think it's actually that hard for the dedicated silicon to support that, it's just that they haven't usually bothered for reasons like perceived usefulness and power usage. But otherwise I don't believe the hardware on the Raspberry PI is better, it obviously has features suitable for its use which don't cost much to add like ethernet, HDMI and component video. (I know some cheap tablets do support these although I'm not entirely sure if it's the US$80-100 ones.)
 * So the absence of a resonably priced nettops or just SFF boards has always been a bit of a surprise. Sure there has been the Atom based nettops but they cost more and have higher power usage (but generally a bit more powerful). There's also been stuff like Via based ones or those using Geode (processor) or fit-PC but again more expensive and with higher power usage and possibly not any faster (and the GPU on Geode ones at least are generally very weak although not really a big issue considering the target market). Also other odd stuff like the Lemote and the Efika and SheevaPlug (and the other plugs ) which have filled various market niches but again these have generally been more expensive (and possibly more power hungry). Then there's been much weaker stuff suitable for an NAS and perhaps a small number of torrents like  which have been cheap. There has been an increasing proliferation of these ARM based devices, e.g. PandaBoard, Cotton Candy (single-board computer) and CuBox which fill the higher end (although these are crossing in to Atom price range territory, the Atom may not be more powerful so if you have no need for x86, why not?)
 * But anyway back to my earlier point, I don't see the price as that surprising. I guess no one thought there was sufficient interest. It's a little lower then I expected, I was thinking more on the lines of US$50-60 or so but AFAIK nothing like that has existed despite the fact given the tablets it looked to me like it should have been possible. The only real option has been buying second hand PCs. (I believe Broadcom are subsiding the Raspberry Pi ) so the lower price then what I expected doesn't really surprise me either.) I'm more surprised that it took so long. (I believe some Arduino and similar people are moving to ARM based devices although they were unlikely to have the market influence to get even the $50 range without subsidies and of course are approaching it from a different area.)
 * BTW your BOM for smartphone seems rather expensive to me, it sounds like you're talking about something with a more powerful CPU and GPU (and probably more RAM) then the Raspberry PI or the many cheaper smart phones out there. (I don't tend to follow BOMs that much but at a guess, it sounds like Galaxy S II BOM or probably something even better. From a quick search the Iphone 4S BOM seems to be under £200.) Here in NZ which isn't generally the cheapest place for electronic gadgets you can get a decent low-mid smartphones like LG P500 (which I received in July last year when it was about $100 more) for under NZ$200 including 15% GST. I don't think they're losing money on these (unlike in some other countries mobile phones here are rarely subsidised unless you receive them as part of a plan, locking is very rare and controversial here) so it's quite unlikely they BOM comes anything close to £200+.
 * P.S. More recently there's also tablets like the Ubislate 7+ which are even cheaper although I never quite understood if there was any subisidies (not counting the development and purchasing power from the non-commercial one) to the commercial version, I presume no but I'm not sure.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 13:35, 21 March 2012 (UTC)